Opening links on some web sites doesn't work

[Dragan Tomas]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

This is the strangest thing I've ever seen in a browser. Aren't browsers meant to allow users to click on a valid link that's on any given page and either take you there or show you some kind of an error? Well, sarcasm aside, this browser doesn't seem to want to work like that any more and I'm not sure if it's because of some of the plugins I have installed or what. <modified> The example I gave previously was not good because it turns out that page doesn't really work well with anything other than IE 5.x or above. The real problem that I can always reproduce and confirm that it only doesn't work in Intrepid is with an Intranet web site we use at work, but for security reasons I can't give you the link to it. If you want to know what drives that web site I can elaborate, but this Intranet page never had problems with Hardy. You can open the links in a new tab on that page, but not within the same window. <end of modification>

What gives? I don't even know where to start on this trying to figure it out. Do any of you have any method of tracing what is taking place when this type of stuff occurs? Is there a log I can retrieve or watch some sort of a real time console output of what is the browser doing when I'm clicking on those links? The same exact pages I'm having difficulties with work just fine in other versions of Firefox, whether installed on Windows or Linux platform.

This is the version in Intrepid with the problem:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3

And this is the one in the latest openSuse 11 that I'm not having the issue with:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008091700 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3

--Croatian

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/opt/real/RealPlayer
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-8-generic i686

[Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink)]

I can also confirm that it happens with "A Browser" brand in Intrepid. The page having the issue is written in active server pages format using style-sheets and some Java scripts. It also features a small Adobe Flash driven weather applet. I also removed the Beagle plugin because that's the last one I added that I can remember and it still does it. Disabling the Google toolbar also doesn't have any effect. The error console (from the Tools menu in Firefox) doesn't give anything significant information concerning this bug. One thing that's maybe unique about this Intranet web page is the fact that it requires you to first authenticate using NTLM authentication of a sort in a pop-u dialog box so it can customize the content for you, but authentication goes through fine and does show the page. The page also doesn't let me refresh it and the home button in Firefox doesn't work if clicked. The home page is set to that Intranet web site. The only way I can ever see it open is if the Firefox is started anew or if I manually enter the URL in the address bar.

Did someone conspire to "stick it to the man" and do away with some ASP compatibilities? Can someone please respond?

--Croatian

[Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink)]

It looks like nobody here either believes me or you guys think it's not important, but I've never seen this to be happening to Firefox before. The Seamonkey works fine and so do other browsers including Firefox on the openSuse 11 machine, but this one doesn't want to open any links that are part of the same server directory structure. If the link on the page in question is to an external source then it works, but the only way I can get any server related links to open is to right click them and select to open it in a new window or a tab.

Would anyone please acknowledge this to be an issue and figure out what's wrong with it? I'm starting to think I'm just talking to myself here.

--Croatian

[Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink)]

I had my buddy in IT try to disable the Accuweather applet (Adobe Flash) on the IIS 6 server just to see if the links on the page would start to work, but that didn't help. I also downloaded the latest Firefox 3.0.4 that the Ubuntu repositories warned me about this morning along with other 79 different updates via Update Manager, but that too didn't help. Could someone please try to help? This is really driving me nuts. So far this Intranet web site is the only one I can't get to work properly in the Intrepid's Firefox.

[Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink)]

Forget it! I fixed it myself.

Next time one of you poor souls have a strange problem in Firefox just uninstall it completely then delete every .mozilla and .firefox directory you can find (primarily in your home folder). You can then install it again and all will be fine. I suspect that it had something to do with the cache files and folders because when I deleted a bunch of those my problem went away, but my bookmarks and customized plugins as well. I didn't like that so I decided to simply wipe it clean and start from scratch. That worked.

[Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink)]

Nobody but me, myself and I.